Category: Feet

Happy New year peeps!!!! Hope you all had a wonderful start of 2017. I am looking forward to introducing many more natural skincare products to you this year. Since I did not want to limit the post to a product review, I am listing out all my favorites from the brand Juicy Chemistry.

While reading reviews on natural skin care brands, I feel that rather than a constructive criticism and comparison, the posts usually just contain praises. Say you read the posts on body scrubs from these chemical free skin care brands, and every post says they are all good. So how do you choose. If all are good, how do you know which one suits your skin best? That is why you should know your skin well and know the skin type of the person who has written the post. Ask questions to bloggers and reviewers before getting a product.

Juicy Chemistry is a familiar name for my readers as well as natural skincare lovers. Based on Coimbatore,t he pure and totally chemical free products of this brand, provides effective skincare, in addition to making you smell so wonderful. Ohhh yeah, the fragrance of aroma oil blends in their products are so exotic.

I am not listing all the products I have used from them (yes there is a lot), but just a mini review of my favorites and not so favorites.

Moisturizers: Yay

I totally recommend body butters from JC, for normal to dry skin. They smell so decadent and pure. I even use it as a body pomade, for the fragrance is really wonderful. The ones I love are the Choco mint, Rose and Jasmine variants. The fragrance is not heady and the body butters melt to form oily films when applied on skin. Massage it well and the skin stays nourished throughout the day.

The coffee and green tea eye cream from the brand is made of very impressive ingredients like green tea and coffee infused almond oil, mango butter, lavender essential oil etc. But this one failed to impress me. Can’t call it a cream, as it is in a condensed oil form.

Take a bit and apply it under and around the eye area, and it makes the whole area very oily. So cannot use it if you are going to step out. Also if it goes in the eye (which is very likely as the oil spreads on massaging the eye area), it really stings. I used it regularly over a period, but it did not do anything for the fine lines under my eyes. I don’t have dark circles, so can’t comment on that.It can be very nourishing for the skin I feel, but somehow did not work for me.

Face masks: Yay

The two face masks I tried from the brand, Rose-sandalwood and Tea tree-Charcoal masks helps control the oiliness of oily-combination skin types. These masks are in powder form. The rose face masks feels warm on skin whereas the tea tree variant has cooling effect. These are made of essential oils and clays and doesn’t dry out the skin.

Eventhough it did not draw out any black heads from my nose, this really works in clearing out acne and scrubbing out dead skin. On making a paste of the powder, with water, the texture resembles that of paper pulp. It is soft and non gritty when wet. But on drying, this gets gritty and acts as a scrub. The cooling effect of the peppermint oil helps in calming the skin after a long tiring day in the sun.

Lavender Myrrh and wild forest honey Night Cream : Nay

Well this thick yellow cream for dry skin, obviously did not suit my combination skin. But I wanted to try out a night cream and this is one of my early purchases from JC.This is very oily and it did break out my skin. I am not a fan of the fragrance of this one and also this is something that suits dry to very dry skin types.

Hair care products : Yay

The lavender shampoo bar and argan mango butter hair masque suits all hair types. These are very nourishing and conditions the hair well. These are 2 products I have used up pretty fast as I really liked them. Read about hair care in my post All about hair cleansers

Lip Balms: Yay and Nay

Love the orange candy lip balm but not the rosy rose one. The lip balms came in tubs (now they have them in tubes as well) and I really liked the consistency of the balms. The orange candy one really worked for me as it was moisturizing and the taste was not bad either.

The lip balms melts on applying on lips and forms a thin oily layer that really helps moisturize dry skin. But the rose variant disappointed me, as it stings and I did not like its taste either.

Soaps : Yay

The brand has in stock, a wide range of cold pressed soaps, each for specific skin types or addressing specific skin problems. Eventhough these are really expensive (yes you will get a hole in your pocket), these are made up of high quality ingredients and are very decadent.

The Argan and Rose day serum is made with oils of raspberry seed and carrot seed, containing natural SPF. It has saffron, rose oil and other effective skin care oil blends as well. Well I neither love nor hate this one. I didnot see any visible effects of the serum on skin, though i like to believe that it protects my skin from pollutants and UV rays.

I have been getting messages from many of you asking to recommend a good skin brightening mask. Even though I have tried face masks from many brands including high end ones, none of them has given the glow and brightness to skin, as this simple home made mask. I have been using this since my school days and this was my one and only step for skin care. This is an all in one face/ body pack that offers many benefits like,

controls oiliness

reduces pigmentation

lightens sun tan

clarifies skin

combats pre-mature aging

scrubs away dead skin

softens skin

reduces acne

Are you ready to make your skin dewy and bright. So here we go.

Ingredients are simple and easily available in India:

half teaspoon sandalwood powder

half teaspoon red sandalwood powder

1 teaspoon chick pea flour/besan

Quarter-half teaspoon on turmeric powder

Honey/Curd/Rose water/Milk to mix the ingredients as per skin type

I usually add a spoon of honey or curd for my combination skin. If you have dry skin milk/honey or milk cream will provide the extra moisture boost.

How to prepare:

Simply mix all the ingredients to form a fine paste that’s not too thick. Adjust the quantities as required to get the right consistency. Adding more red sandalwood powder makes the mixture more coarse in my case as the red sandalwood powder I have is not so fine.

How to apply:

Wash your face with warm water and cleanse it well. Apply the pack using hand or a clean face brush. Don’t forget to apply it evenly on your neck as well. Two cucumber pieces for your eyes and relaaaaxxxxx.

Keep it till you feel a bit of stretch. Do not wait till mask is completely dry,as it can dry out and stretch the skin. Massage the still wet mask by moving the fingers upwards. Massage for 2 minutes and wash the mask off using a warm moist face cloth or simply wash it off with warm water.

Finally rinse your face once with cold/ water in room temperature and pat dry.

Admire your squeaky clean and bright face in the mirror <3 <3 <3

This can also be applied as a foot mask for soft and tan free feet.

NOTE : Make sure all ingredients are pure and of good quality. Buy from trusted vendors. Do not use the turmeric powder you use for cooking in this. Kasturi manjal or wild turmeric powder is what we need here.

I get it powdered in mill from raw turmeric. Also I use home made paste of sandalwood and red sandalwood by rolling the wood sticks on stone.

You can also buy these in stick/powdered form from online sites like Ebay , Giskaa and Amazon.

This month I did a bit of quirky shopping and well everything turned out to be amazing (usually I return most of the stuff I buy online). So here is a sneak peak.

Skincare:

I found out about this brand called #skinyoga recently and I got a sample sized green tea face mask to try via the app Smytten.

Skin Yoga is a luxury skin care brand that provides 100% plant based products. The green tea face mask came in this cute little wooden box. The mask was enclosed within a tiny glass bottle with a cork stopper. Head over to my instagram feed (Here), to see the cute video I made unpacking the product.

The product is simple but very effective treatment for oily and acne prone skin. I will be doing a detailed review of the product soon.

Blue sandals :

I came across this fb page 22.2accessories few weeks back, and I loved their funky and quirky handcrafted products. Richa, the brand owner was a doll and helped me choose these awesome pair of handcrafted leather sandals. Really comfortable to wear and best for daily use. I love all those colors that adds life to otherwise unnoticed feet.

Peachy little liars :

I am not a big fan of makeup and I don’t generally use anything but kohl. But it has been a while since I wanted a perfect natural lip shade that can make my otherwise dry and lifeless lips, look a bit healthy on occasions. My search has now ended successfully, after my purchase of Peachylittleliars from Sugar cosmetics. #sugarcosmetics

FDA approved, this lipstick is free of mineral oil and parabens. Love!!!

PC : Sugar Cosmetics

This dusky pink shade is exactly same as my natural lip color, and hence evens out the color of my lips. It brings that subtle glam to my otherwise dried and washed out lips. Quite happy with the shade even though this being matte, does dry out my lips after a while.

So that’s it, these are my favorites for this month. Let me know if there is a brand or product, you think I should know of. I will surely try it out and review it here.

I won a couple of products from JC for a photo contest. I chose the products and this one was one of them. I have never used a scrub dedicated to feet as such. I usually use a pumice stone or a body scrub to exfoliate my feet.

Exfoliation is an important step in skin care and very important for feet. Eventhough our feet does so much everyday, most of us doesn’t give the care it needs. Simply slathering foot creams won’t help, unless the dead skin is scrubbed away first. Regular exfoliation also helps in controlling skin tan and prevents cracks.

Oh my God, the burst of citrusy, lemony fragrance of this one!!! Trust me, not the artificial floor cleaner fragrance but the natural lime leaf fragrance. Earlier JC had floored me with the fragrance of choco-vanilla and rose-coconut body butters. After that i was disappointed with the fragrances of rose lip balm, rose sandal face pack and soaps from them. This one just got me wishing they incorporate this fragrance in other products as well.

The first time I used this product, I felt that the particles are not scrubby enough for the hard skin of feet. Especially because, the sugar and salt particles used up fast on massaging, unlike other natural exfoliants like shell powders. I did not mix this with water as the particles might get dissolved fast. just wet your feet and massage it with a wee spoon full of the scrub.

So for the next use, I soaked my feet in warm water with the Gia peppermint bath salts for a while. Then I took my pumice stone, spread this scrub on it and scrubbed of the dead skin from the feet effectively with the combined action of both.

This scrub is really refreshing and loaded with awesome ingredients. It can alone bufff away dry skin, in case the callus is not very hard.

If not you will need to file away all the dead skin with a pumice stone or metallic scrubber before buffing the extras with this powder.

NOTE TO JC : Please make more and more products with such awesome fragrances.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you would know that I have a good collection of juicy chemistry products, some of which are my favorite and others, not so.

This post is a review about the peppermint foot cream by juicy chemistry and I have a love hate relationship with the product.

Most of us suffer from cracked heels. The skin gets dry and tough there and sometimes it cracks. For me, I just face extra dryness there and chapped skin but no major issues. In my previous post, I had mentioned how we hoard products based on our preference even though it might not be effective for our skin. This one for sure will help to arrest feet dryness but since I am not a fan of anything minty, I sometimes hope, the fragrance was something else.

So let’s move to the detailed review.

Price : 350Rs for 35gm. I got the 75gm pack long back.

Ingredients :

Packing : Best packing out of all the brands I have tried so far. The products came in a black plastic sealed cover that looked great. The product comes in a plastic sturdy jar and there won’t be any spillage owing to the thick and viscous texture of the product.

Texture : It is more of a balm owing to the presence of tea tree and peppermint oils. In cold climate, the oils tend to condense and form white granules but melts on rubbing.

Fragrance : Smells strongly of peppermint. reminds you of those vaporubs.

Quantity : A quarter spoon full is enough to cover both feet. It spreads well and one tub lasts quite long. As you can see mine is almost over and it has been a year since I bought this.

My experience :

First you need to have a home pedi or one at parlour before you expect full results from this. Because the benefits of all ingredients can penetrate the skin only if all the dead skin is removed. So first soak your feet in warm water along with vinegar or bath salt or essential oil of your choice. Scrub of the callus with a scrubber or pumice stone. Apply the cream and massage the heals for few seconds.

This is best applied before bed and you will wake up with soft heels in the morning. Since it is like a balm, and strongly has the peppermint smell, I don’t like using it regularly. I use it after pedis and just before going to bed when I feel like giving that extra nourishment to the heels. The peppermint, shea, beeswax, tea tree oil, vit e nourishes the skin, provides anti fungal benefits and helps the heels relax and heal.